Potter Self-Defense Academy

Cody

Afton

Cheyenne

Gillette

Rock Springs

Lander

Laramie

Casper

Saratoga

Jackson

Wyoming's BJJ story runs through the University of Wyoming in Laramie. When Miles Fortner arrived as a student in 2007, he began training and earned his blue belt two years later. He spent the next decade building his game under Jose Reyes, then Robert Wunderlich — a certified Rigan Machado black belt out of Colorado — who promoted Fortner to black belt in August 2021. Fortner went home to Gillette and built Western Plains BJJ from a small group of students in 2014 into one of the largest academies in northeast Wyoming, with a lineage that runs back to Helio Gracie through the Machado family.

That thread — a Wyoming kid going to college, finding jiu jitsu, and bringing it back to a rural town — plays out across the state. Cheyenne, the capital and the state's most populated city, now has several academies including Cheyenne Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MadHouse BJJ. The wrestling culture embedded in Wyoming high schools feeds directly into grappling gyms here; the state has produced Division I wrestlers, and when those athletes find BJJ, they tend to hit the mat with serious intent. Black Label BJJ of Cheyenne operates with two black belts and a nationally ranked wrestling coach on staff, which tells you something about how the sport takes shape in this state.

Casper anchors the central Wyoming scene. Ice House Athletics has run BJJ under Professor Grant Gaither since at least 2007, when Gaither began training under Finnie and Tessa McMahon at the McMahon Training Center. Gaither received his black belt from McMahon in January 2016 and has since medaled at the Pan American Championships across multiple belt levels. Down in Lander — a small outdoor-recreation town in the Wind River Range — Wind River Dojo offers both BJJ and Judo in a nonprofit structure run entirely by volunteer instructors. Patrick Hall, the BJJ black belt there, trained under Finnie McMahon and the Renzo Gracie Fight Team, giving a remote Wyoming mountain town a direct Renzo Gracie lineage.

Rock Springs, Gillette, and the Jackson Hole corridor each carry the load for their respective corners of the state. Wyo Faction BJJ and Judo in Rock Springs combines grappling with MMA and Judo instruction under a team that includes David and Molly Wenig. In Laramie, Third Way Jiu Jitsu under Professor Jess Simpson runs a consistent schedule that also includes a women's self-defense program — notable given that Laramie is a college town with a transient population. Jackson Hole MMA handles the northwest corner, where the tourist economy keeps a surprising number of athletic transplants flowing through the gym.

MatMade lists 21 BJJ gyms across Wyoming, spread across a state where towns can be ninety miles apart. That geographic reality shapes the training culture: mat time is taken seriously because there is no backup gym down the street, and the community that forms at each academy tends to be tight. Newcomers should expect hard-nosed training, a heavy wrestling influence, and instructors who built their programs from scratch in places where none existed before.

BJJ & Martial Arts in Cody, Wyoming